Cancel Culture (re)defined! Cancel Culture at Sarah Lawrence College! Is the UN the new Censorship Depot? & more!

Bringing you the latest free speech news (9/1/24)

Stories of the week

• The Dangerous Evolution of Cancel Culture (Minding the Campus) by FIRE Board Member Sam Abrams

The culture of vocal, organized, and illiberal forces is now driving students away from courses these groups find objectionable. Unlike larger, more diffuse schools like Pace University or New York University, smaller residential schools like Sarah Lawrence College—where everyone knows everyone and reputations are critical—face amplified risks. When students are directly messaged about a boycott, it clearly signals that enrolling in my class could be risky. Such a culture is the antithesis of a true collegiate education. It is nearly impossible to stand against a mob that has declared someone persona non grata. While protesting a professor in the public sphere is one thing, directly targeting and approaching students through multiple channels raises the stakes, significantly increasing the intimidation for those who refuse to fall in line.

• UN may hand authoritarian governments new weapon to silence dissent by Sarah McLaughlin

The treaty, in theory, seeks to improve international cooperation in fighting crimes taking place using computer systems. However, this cooperation is not limited to specific criminal acts. Rather, the treaty coerces nations to hand over personal data that other governments request about individuals accused of committing “serious crimes” involving computers.  

This week in FIRE’s blog

• TAKE ACTION: FIRE is fighting censorship in Salt Lake City, where the city is weaponizing vague “decorum” rules to silence dissent in public meetings

This is a fight that affects all of us, which has prompted FIRE’s involvement. This issue also goes beyond any single meeting or policy—it’s about the right to speak out and be heard. We must stand together to protect these fundamental rights. Send an email to the Salt Lake City Council today, urging them to revise their public comment rules and uphold the First Amendment. Let’s ensure that all voices, especially those challenging power, are heard and respected.

• How Milwaukee and Chicago circumvented free speech at the RNC and DNC by Megan Myers

• Trump’s proposed constitutional amendment banning flag burning would have unintended consequences by Jordan Howell

• Rooting out bad arguments against free speech by Carrie Robison

This week in ERI

• Deeper into defining ‘Cancel Culture’ with Scott Alexander by Adam Goldsten & me

In his response to Greg’s post outlining the benefits of his and Rikki’s definition, Alexander said that he was looking for something more rigorous, and asked how our definition might handle a number of philosophical thought experiments. If we unpack our definition a bit more, we can see it’s more rigorous than it might have seemed at first. Part of the goal of this definition was to come up with a short(ish) definition that encapsulated a great deal of meaning without having to be pages and pages long, and we think we've achieved that.

This week on ‘So to Speak’

• FIRE EVP & “So to Speak” host Nico Perrino spoke with Tufts University professor Eitan Hersh about his class on conservatism and the impact he hopes it will make in the liberal monoculture that largely characterizes the Tufts campus.

International free speech stories of the week

• Afghanistan: ‘Frightening’ Taliban law bans women from speaking in public (The Guardian) by Annie Kelly & Zahra Joya

• Hong Kong: Editors Convicted of Sedition in Blow to Press Freedom (The NYT) by Tiffany May

• Russia: Russia bans 92 more Americans from the country, including journalists (AP)

London Calling: Ronnie’s First Amendment Roundup

• Anderson v. TikTok

In a case of tragic facts compounding into questionable law, this week the Third Circuit revived claims of a family who sued TikTok after a 10-year-old accidentally self-asphyxiated attempting the “Blackout Challenge” from videos the social media platform served to her, reversing the trial court’s dismissal of the case under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes interactive computer services like social media from liability as the publishers of the content that third parties post. Though the court acknowledged the “Blackout Challenge” posts were third-party videos, it held that because TikTok’s algorithm decides what content to include or exclude then organizes and presents it on each user’s “For You Page,” that action constitutes “TikTok's own ‘expressive activity,’ and thus… first-party speech” falling outside Section 230. In doing so, the panel invokes the recent Moody v. NetChoice Supreme Court holding that social media algorithms reflecting editorial judgments about compiling third-party speech constitute the platform’s “expressive product” that the First Amendment protects. But that extrapolation from Moody about how Section 230 should work embodies an increasingly common misconception of the statute and its purposes. Section 230 applies because platforms exercise editorial prerogatives under the First Amendment – observing that they're engaged in protected speech in doing so, which is the strand of Moody the panel pulls on here, adds nothing.  Rather, it serves only to reinforce the premise on which 230 rests, and is not a ground for denying immunity. Or, as FIRE put it in its statement on Moody, the case stands for the proposition that “the First Amendment affords all publishers the same speech and press protections, whether they publish on a printing press, a movie screen, or an online platform” – so Section 230 exists to treat online publishers differently when it comes to liability, given the volume of content the Internet facilitates and the degree to which we want platforms to foster robust third-party speech. The logical extension of the Third Circuit’s decision is that platforms wishing to retain 230 immunity would have to forgo curation, moderation, and crafting algorithms. Fortunately, a long line of cases holds that such editorial decision-making is precisely what Section 230 immunizes – as the panel itself admits in the penultimate footnote of its decision.

Book of the week

• This week’s book of the week is Nate Silver’s “On The Edge.” Aside from a few gripes (he hides some of the best stuff in the back ⅓ of the book & a lot of the gambling-related content is lost on me), it’s a fantastic book with BIG ideas articulated in a concise and engaging style.